The sides of the ladder are formed by alternating deoxyribose and phosphate molecules, and the rungs (or steps) of the ladder consist of a specific order of four nitrogen bases.

These nitrogen bases are adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, which is commonly represented by the letters A, T, C, and G. These letters comprise what is known as the four letter alphabet.

This alphabet is identical to our English alphabet in terms of its ability to communicate a message, except the genetic alphabet has four letters instead of twenty-six.

Just as the specific order of the letter in this sentence conveys a message, the specific order of A, T, C, and G within the living cell determines the unique genetic makeup of that living entity. This is called specified complexity. In other words, not only is it complex—it also contains a specific message.

This incredible specified complexity of life became obvious when one considers the message found in the DNA of a one-celled amoeba.

Darwinist Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford University, admits that the message found in just the cell nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more than all thirty volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica combined, and the entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1,000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In other words, if you were to spell out all the A, T, C, and G, the letters would fill 1,000 complete sets of an encyclopedia.

Now, we must emphasize that these 1,000 encyclopedias do not consist of random letters but of letters in a very specific order—just like real encyclopedias.

So, the key question Darwinists must answer: Why doesn’t a message of 1,000 encyclopedias long require an intelligent being? Darwinists cannot answer that question by showing how natural laws do the job. Instead, they define the rules of science so narrowly that intelligence is ruled out in advance, leaving natural laws as the only solution to this intellectual debate.

If we cannot directly observe the past, then what scientific principles can we use to help us discover what caused the first life?